Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have been a long time Topsy Turvy fan and have had great success overall. I have done tomatoes but mostly I stick to peppers and always have a great harvest. I have several Topsy Turvy's that are at least 5 years old and yes there are some cracks in the plastic tops but they still work great. There are some challenges when using this product that you need to be aware of and there is certainly some truth to some of the criticism that has been posted in the negative reviews. One of those is that plants don't normally grow downwards so they will immediately turn upwards towards the sun. It looks weird but give them time they still grow and produce just fine. The second major complaint I have seen posted is that the planters dry out quickly. That is certainly true and you need to water them pretty much twice a day in the hot summer months. If you are planning a summer vacation and cant set up a automatic watering timer or have a neighbor stop by every day you will likely lose your plants. I fortunately have great neighbors (who enjoy me sharing my harvest) so this has not been a real problem for me. While this is certainly a concern it is also one of the advantages of Topsy Turvy. The sun bakes the planter which heats up the roots and really kick starts the plants growing in the cool spring months. Just dig down a couple inches in the ground in the spring and the soil is cold even on warm days. That is the original Topsy Turvy so what about the "new and improved" version. There are two changes. The first is how you insert the plant and the second is a new watering system. The old way of inserting the plant required you to put round thin sponge around the stem of the plant just above the root ball. You then lowered the plant from the top (upside down) and out a hole at the bottom. The only challenge was snaking all the leaves successfully through the hole and over the years I have damaged or ripped off leaves almost every time. Not a big deal and the plants will recover. The benefit of this method though was that the root ball stays intact. Additionally the sponge made a pretty much air tight seal around the stem so soil could never escape once the plant was in place. The new method uses a "Starburst Bottom" that requires you to insert the root ball through the bottom. This certainly saves any damage to the leaves but I do agree with the other reviews that it is very disruptive to the root balls. I suspect that the plants will recover just fine but that is yet to be seen and I will update this post accordingly later in the year. The other thing I noticed with this new method is that when I watered the planter the first time, soil was getting flushed out the bottom. That was never a problem with the sponge in place. I suspect as the soil compacts over time this issue will go away. The other change is the new watering system. I really like this change because I am expecting it to really help with how quickly these planters can dry out in the hot summer days that I mentioned earlier. What they have done is added a six inch, basically a basket at the top that has a liner at its bottom designed to slowly let water through over a long period of time. My concern's are that I think the liner may let the water through too fast, additionally you are sacrificing up to 6 inches of space that could be used for additional soil. The idea is great though and when I update this post I will let everyone know how it is working. So why am I giving it only two stars. I am concerned that the quality may have gone down. I jus bought two of the "new and improved" planters and one broke before I even added water to it. See the attached photos. I am hoping this is just a one time fluke as I have two more on order so again I will update this post after they arrive. Additionally I will run a test on the new watering system to see how long it takes water to drip out when it is completely full. Hope this review helps everyone.